Mark Zuckerberg says video now accounts for almost half the time spent on Facebook, and that Reels is the “largest contributor to engagement growth”
He wants Facebook to become a ‘metaverse company.’ — Facebook users are spending a lot more time watching video …
Context & Ripple Effects
Facebook’s renewed emphasis on video follows an earlier period in which reducing viral-video distribution cut overall time spent, making the reported rebound in video viewing strategically significant. Reels is presented as the engagement engine inside that shift, not merely a new format.
The move became broader: Zuckerberg later redirected Facebook teams toward young adults and further Instagram video changes, while Meta subsequently reported that Reels occupied a meaningful share of Instagram time and video accounted for half of Facebook time across the two apps.
First-order effects
- Facebook’s product and content priorities shift further toward video, with Reels receiving heightened attention as Zuckerberg’s stated largest driver of engagement growth.
- Reels gains internal strategic weight relative to other Facebook experiences because its contribution is measured in time spent and engagement.
Second-order effects
- The focus on young adults and video puts Facebook and Instagram teams on a shared short-form-video agenda, as reflected in the later organizational redirection toward younger users.
- Recommendation systems become more central to Reels’ business case: Meta later attributed Instagram time-spent growth to AI recommendations and expected Reels to reach revenue neutrality by late 2023 or early 2024.
Third-order effects
- If engagement and monetization continue to converge around recommended short video, Meta’s social products increasingly compete on feed-ranking quality and creator-format execution rather than primarily on legacy social connections.
- The pattern points to a platform portfolio in which video is a core attention layer across Facebook and Instagram, making shifts in video distribution consequential for overall usage.
The trend: Meta is reorganizing its social apps around algorithmically recommended short video as the principal route to engagement growth and, eventually, monetization.